Top College Basketball Picks for Saturday, March 12th (2022)
These are the final games before we find out who goes dancing. There are some really great matchups through the conference finals, and we will see some teams starting their magical run today. We featured a couple of matchups that could go down to the wire and one possible upset for a bubble team that needs an automatic bid.
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No 5. Kentucky (-2.5) vs. No. 9 Tennessee O/U 139 (Tip 3 p.m. ET)
TyTy Washington is looking healthy after 25 point performance against Vanderbilt, including 4-of-5 from the three-point line. With him at the perimeter and Oscar Tshiebwe still being one of the most dominant players in the interior, this Kentucky team could make an excellent run in the tournament. They still have one more game to the big dance, and they would love an SEC title. The defense is playing well both inside and out, so with the Vols shooting 35% from three, Kentucky is great defending it, with opponents shooting just 30%.
Tennessee knows they can beat this team. That 76-63 win will be in their head. They shot the ball really well in that game, kept the turnovers down, and were aggressive at getting to the free throw line. One of the things they couldn’t do was out-rebound Kentucky, and they won’t do it with Tshiebwe on the boards. They need to have an almost perfect shooting night because they won’t be getting many second-chance opportunities.
We also have to remember Kentucky has a 28-point win against Tennessee this season, and in that loss, Washington suffered the injury that put him out for a couple of weeks. With a fully healthy Wildcat lineup, they’ll lock up another SEC title.
Creighton vs. No. 8 Villanova (-6.5) O/U 129.5 (Tip: 6:30 p.m.)
Creighton has looked good in this tournament as they’ve shot nearly 50% in both games and dominated the top-seeded Providence in an 85-58 win. Senior forward Ryan Hawkins has been a significant contributor the whole season, and that hasn’t stopped during the conference tournament with 18 points in the quarter-finals and 12 rebounds in semis. If you look at the side-by-side team stats, you can argue Creighton is the better team as they’re better than Villanova in field goal percentage, rebounds, assists, and blocks.
It’s hard to argue with the overall talent of Villanova. This is a starting lineup of incredible talent where any of these guys could be the star on another team. The Wildcats’ leading scorer Collin Gilespie was not a big contributor in the win over UConn, but with Jermaine Samuels coming up big with 21 points and 12 rebounds, they don’t need him to be the star every night, and they still put themselves in a good spot to win every game.
When you look at the two previous matchups, the home team won big in both. In the first game at Omaha, Creighton lit up the scoreboard shooting 54.5%, but Nova had one of their worst shooting days up to that point, then when the game moved to Pennsylvania, it was the Blue Jays couldn’t shoot. On a neutral court, anything can happen, and that’s why you need to look at the total. These teams have played some low-scoring games, and in these three games in three days, the exhaustion has to be setting in.
Virginia Tech vs. No. 9 Duke (-6) O/U 138.5 (Tip 8:30 p.m.)
Duke is in the ACC finals, but they certainly cannot be happy going into this game as they struggled since that loss to North Carolina. Thankfully, the offense is playing well because the defense has been awful, especially against the three. In their previous two matchups against Syracuse, they held the Orange to shoot 21.2% from three, in the quarterfinals, they hit 41.9%, yesterday Miami shot 38.1% from three.
So we may have a problem here. Virginia Tech heads into this game with the fourth-best three-point shooting percentage in the country and is 26th in field goals made. The Hokies have plenty of options to get you from deep — of the eight players averaging over 30 minutes per game, five of them are shooting over 36%, so this means they are going to have a lineup throughout the whole game with multiple guys that can beat you from behind the arc.
VA Tech is on the bubble right now, and possibly at this point, one of the first four out. They need this automatic bid if they want to go dancing, so they’re going to leave it all on the floor. Duke is just looking out of sync, they’ve been able to pull away at the end of these games, but they have a lot to work on if they want to send Coach K out on top. The Hokies have all the momentum, and they’re going to use it and win their first-ever ACC title.
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